


Consequences

by DelilahBlueEyes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, drunk, skin deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 20:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahBlueEyes/pseuds/DelilahBlueEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After she is cast out of her true love’s castle, Belle stops at a tavern on her way back home where she gives some very good advice, gets gloriously drunk and gives a certain malicious monarch a piece of her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> I hate that title, but it’ll work for now. Can’t think of a better one. Suggestions? Didn’t really go back through and edit so I hope it looks okay. I’ll check it later. Hope someone likes it!

_How did this all go so wrong?_   Belle asked herself as she stared down at her hands. She’d started the evening planning to just have a drink or two to ease her to sleep in the room she’d rented in the inn across the street. Now she was listing dangerously on her bar stool which suddenly seem much farther away from the ground than when she’d first sat herself on it, her eyes struggling to focus on the nearly empty mug held between her hands. Clearly she’d never built up a tolerance for alcohol with the occasional glass of wine with dinner and the four or five… or six drinks had gone straight to her head. _It’s all that dwarf’s fault._

Her head swam as she turned to look over at where the seven dwarves had been seated not two hours before. That dwarf and his dratted ignorance about love. _I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I don’t feel at all like myself._ When she’d heard him speaking about how he felt and his friend discouraging him, she’d felt compelled to speak up.

_You’re in love. Trust me. I know love, and… you’re in it._

When he’d asked what love was like, she’d nearly cried for a moment. What was love like? How could you possibly put into words something to so big and small and confusing and perfect terrible? But she’d tried.

_It’s the most wonderful and amazing thing in the world._ Like the way his arms had felt when he’d caught her after her fall from the ladder. _Love is hope._ Like the way his eyes lit up whenever she laughed at his jokes or the times she caught him staring at her when he thought she couldn’t see. _It fuels our dreams._ She had plenty of fuel judging by some of the dreams she’d had in the castle, dreams that involved taking his intense attention away from his spinning wheel and keeping it all to herself in ways that made her whole body blush. _And if you’re in it, you need to enjoy it. Because love doesn’t always last forever._ If only she could take her own advice but it was done. Thinking about her parting advice caused her to clutch at the counter before her as the world hazed through the mist in her eyes.

_Now go. Find your love. Find your hope. Find your dreams._

And the silly man had charged out of the tavern at a fast clip, his brethren scrambling to follow him as he disappeared into the night’s gloom. Of course none of them had thought to ask how it was the she knew so much about love or the wistful look in her eyes when she spoke about it, but she wasn’t sure she would have spoken about it even if prompted to. The subject of being tossed out on your arse immediately after confessing your feelings for your true love was not exactly a conversation for those newly in the throes of sweet love. Pushing her empty mug across the rough-hewn surface of the bar, she staggered off her stool, bracing herself against it for a moment as the world tilted and weaved like one of her father’s ships in the harbor when they went out on a pleasure cruise. Father. Home. That was the way she was bound, by way of the main thorough fair through the forest, hopefully to find a ride on the back of a hay cart as her dainty slippers were wearing through from all the miles she’d walked from Rumpelstiltskin’s castle.

The thought made her sad and suddenly, massively tired as she trudged carefully out of the tavern into the cooler night air, the skirt of her dress shifting around her ankles skewing her balance enough that she had to pause outside of the building to gain her bearings and strike off in the direction of the stairs that would lead her to bed and blissful unconsciousness. She would probably wake tomorrow feeling much the worse for wear and she’d only accomplished dredging up the very memories that she’d wished to bury with drink, but she had at least set someone else on the path to true love, and she wished with all her heart that even as her love withered before her eyes, theirs would grow true and strong in the face of the adversity they would likely face. So focused was she on placing her feet in the shallower, less muddy of the trenches in the street that she didn’t notice immediately that she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t until the person spoke up causing her to lose her precarious balance and topple over that she realized she was being watched.

“Gracious, my dear. It appears that the ale does not agree with you. Very unflattering,” a sickly sweet voice, somewhere in the dark before Belle, who was sitting like an idiot child in the mud, head reeling as she peered around.

“W-who’s there?” She called, drawing herself up and feeling proud that she didn’t slur her words terribly.

A shadow detached itself from the side wall of the inn and moved slowly into the low, flickering light of the torches as Belle sat waiting. The woman was draped entirely in black, from the hem of her theatrically swirling dress to the strangely spiked hair ornament placed delicately atop her swooping onyx curls, pulled back to show off the décolletage pushed to great advantage by her corset. Her dramatically red lips were pulled back in a vicious smile, one that struck something deep down inside Belle as all too familiar. One word slipped through the fog in her head, one word spoken in a high-pitched, furious voice. _Queen._

_The queen. Your friend, the queen._

This woman, this gaudily dressed monster staring intently down at her with eyes that danced with hellish pleasure was the one she’d met on the road to the village. The one who’d sent her back to Rumpelstiltskin on an impossible mission. The one she’d been accused of working for. _Or is this you being the hero? And Killing the beast._ Before she knew what she was doing Belle shot to her feet, leaping forward to beat the queen with her fists, but quickly fell through the empty space where the queen had just been standing to catch herself hard on her hands and knees.

“Really, dear. Attacking a monarch. What would your father say?” The witch had the audacity to laugh. _Laugh_. After all of the trouble she’d caused Belle and her almost lover, she believed she could stand there and laugh? Belle staggered back to her feet in a second, tripping slightly on the front of her skirt as she whirled to face the queen again. Her skin felt hot and tight and her face screwed up into the a scowl.

“You evil _bitch_!” She shouted, hearing behind her own words the inflection that Rumpelstiltskin had used when glaring at his own reflection in the mirror. _You evil_ soul. She stepped forward again, intent on landing at least one blow against the queen’s candy apple red mouth before she was killed.

“Such language!” The queen laughed again but didn’t bother moving as Belle lunged toward her with a wordless growl only to find herself restrained by two broad soldiers wearing hats resembling chimney cleaners. “Quite the little ruffian, aren’t you? Drinking in the tavern with dwarves, brawling in the street, locking lips with monsters.”

Belle drove her elbow up into the underside of one of the soldier holding her left arm, who promptly released her with a yelp and tumbled backward. She darted forward, dragging the other soldier with her until she could wrap her fingers in a tight grip around the queens throat, a wave of victory washing over her for a moment until her wrist was wrenched away again along with the smile on that cruel mouth. Belle laughed herself as the queen leaned forward her fingers slipping into her hair to jerk her head back. She was too drunk and upset to feel any pain from the action.

“I am going to kill you,” she declared, forcing the words through lips that had gone numb hours ago and relishing the surprise it caused to flicker through the cold eyes inches away from her own. “I am going to kill you, and then I am going to bring your head to Rumpelstiltskin and we are going to dance all night long around the bonfire that melts the skin from your skull.”

The queen was silent for a handful of seconds, still with that almost fearful gleam in her eyes before her sickly sweet, candy apple red smile slid back into place. “We shall see, my dear.”

One long fingernail tapped the thin skin at Belle’s temple and she slumped between the guards, the queens insane, Cheshire cat grin the last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her whole.

\-----------

 “Ah, good morning. I was afraid we may have another sleeping beauty on our hands and the first one was quite enough of that nonsense.”

Belle groaned and rolled onto her side as she came to. She felt as if an ogre had kicked her in the head repeatedly and her body ached from lying on the ground. She cracked her eyes open and even the meager candlelight that flickered off the dull stone walls sent a spike of pain through her. Standing in the center of the already tiny room, sucking up all the space with her overbearing presence was the queen, decked out in yet another ridiculous dress that pressed her breasts up to her chin. As she watched through slitted eyes, the queen snapped her silk covered fingers and disappeared, leaving Belle alone in her tiny dungeon. After a few more painful moments she forced herself to sit up, leaning back against the wall with a gasp as the world tilted around her.

Taking stock of her new home took less than a minute. It was a small, rectangular room that held only the one flickering, guttering candle melted around a rock, a thin hay-stuffed mat for her to sleep on, and a large steel door with two slats in it, one at eye level for the queen’s viewing pleasure, and one near the ground for her meals to be pushed through. A window narrower across than her shoulders showed a smattering of stars and she realized she must have slept the entire day through, if not more. Good thing too as she could barely tolerate the candlelight as it was. She slowly pulled her knees up to her chest and gently leant her head back against the rough stones behind her, sighing again as she tried to think through the pulsing pain and guess what might lie ahead for her. She was sure she wouldn’t be leaving here any time soon, at least not in the condition in which she had arrived and she’d burned the only bridge that could have saved her from this. _I expect I’ll never see you again._ He’d been right about that at least. To top it all off, she didn’t suppose the guards be convinced to bring her anything to ease her blasted hangover before the queen came to torment her some more. What a lovely turn her life had lately taken. And she was only twenty. Still so much of her life left to go awry and she’d barely begun to have any of those adventures she’d dreamed of. It was going to be a long, long time before she got drunk again if this was the result. But at least she’d have the memory of that little flicker of fear in her captive’s eyes to hold her over.


End file.
